Triumph at Giordano

They say that Hong Kong is the shopping capital of the world. There are malls and shopping centers EVERYWHERE, so many that I am amazed that they can all stay in business. Thousands of mainland Chinese come to Hong Kong every year to shop and so do many people from the rest of the world. I have gotten lost down in Central too many times, wandering from building to building. The buildings are all connected by flyovers and so many of the stores are the same or similar that it is easy to forget how you got to a place and it is hard to figure out how to get back that place if you ever want to find it again. Being lost there is sort of like being caught in the twilight zone or some kind of weird time warp or something. Hopefully later I will look back at this and laugh at myself for not knowing my way around cause it will seem so obvious to me...

With all of this shopping going on, it is strange that I am so intimidated by the prospect of shopping for clothes here. Normally I love buying new clothes and especially new shoes. But in Hong Kong shopping is different that shopping in the US. For one thing, even when shopping at Watsons (a drug store like Longs or Rite Aid), the moment you walk in, sales people swarm around you and grab your arm and try to lead you to products that they think you should buy. If you do find something that you like, they immediately snatch it way from you to put it up at the counter. I am a very indecisive shopper and I like to take my time to browse the selection, and hold the things that I MIGHT want, but if I find something better I might put the other things back on the shelf. The other thing that I am worry about when shopping here is that none of the clothes or shoes will fit me, and I will have to go to one of those plus size clothing stores advertised in the expat magazines. Not that I think I am huge or anything, but everyone is so tiny here! Also, when I was in India, the shop clerks would yell at me, "We have huge sizes here! Come inside, huge sizes available!" or they would look at me and shake their head and say, "Nothing will fit you here." Of course, this only happened in the little towns, not in Delhi, but I think this scarred me in some way because now I am deathly afraid that it will happen here. The shop keepers were just being honest, but I don't think my psyche could take it again!

I was finally forced into shopping today because most of my clothes are still on their way here, and the few clothes that I brought need to be washed now. So, I picked the least intimidating store, Giordano (which is everywhere and sort of the equivalent of Old Navy or Gap in the US), and told myself, "Meagan, just be assertive." With that frame of mind, I went inside a Giordano far from my house, over in the Causeway Bay MTR station. I walked inside and the salesladies surrounded me, so I figured I had better just go with the flow and take their help since they were going to surround me anyway. So I said , "I have no idea what size I am, and do you have any pants that would fit my big American butt?" One lady laughed and measured me and picked out some stuff for me to try on. I actually ended up liking their help because they brought me tons of different sizes and colors, they complimented me on how I looked, they smoothed the cuffs on the pants and they tied the belts for me. I could get used to that! Especially the complimenting part...but the best part was that I was not even close to the biggest size in the store. I walked out of the store with two pairs of cropped pants, a shirt, and a shawl that the lady said made me look like a butterfly. It sounds silly, but I really feel like I triumphed by shopping for clothes successfully. Now maybe I can work up to shopping at one of the cool little boutiques down in Soho.